


Ogrim's Oath

by Schnikeys_Discuss (Schnikeys)



Series: Clockie's Meta [19]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Analysis, Archived from radioactivesupersonic Blog, Character Analysis, Gen, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schnikeys/pseuds/Schnikeys_Discuss
Summary: "I think Ogrim is separated from his fellow knights purely by the unfortunate distinction of being the sole survivor."
Series: Clockie's Meta [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974223
Kudos: 10





	Ogrim's Oath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClockworkRainbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkRainbow/gifts).



scatter44 asked: What do you think Ogrim the dung defender did to get exiled?

* * *

I don’t believe Ogrim was necessarily exiled? I could have missed some canon tidbit that suggests that, but, as far as I know, the beta description of his story merely states he was “lost to puerile obsession” which would seem to be his self-appointed guardianship of Isma’s grove. He calls himself “once a knight” but that could very well be his acknowledging he’s not really much of a Knight if both king and kingdom are long gone, in his usual somewhat self-critical manner.

The dream nail dialogue from Isma’s corpse is her telling him “there’s no time” and she may have manufactured the acid-repelling tear for him. That, and the White Defender’s lines and dream nail dialogue would certainly suggest that Ogrim at least doesn’t view himself as an exile- that he was still caring for the Defender’s Crest and maintaining it would seem to imply that he was not dishonored, and it’s merely Sheo’s attitudes that leads him to designate Ogrim “the other one”.

I think Ogrim is separated from his fellow knights purely by the unfortunate distinction of being the sole survivor. Isma’s dialogue, again, implies that she and Ogrim fled into the waterways, possibly when the city was overrun with Husks, possibly escaping some other hazard, and Ogrim has remained there since, trying to protect Isma’s grove, which he describes as “my oath”, implying he felt like it was a personal agreement he entered into, not a punishment.

Honestly, the Defender’s Crest is interesting to me because its description states the King gave it to Ogrim as his most loyal knight. This intrigues me because the King’s personality seems extremely frigid and distant- he seems very slow to warm to people and lets precious few in, and, even those connections- the White Lady and the Pure Vessel- fell apart because he seemed to have no idea how to tend to them even though he himself was attached to them enough that grief, and guilt, seems to have eaten him alive after losing them both, even if he refused to deviate from his plan of using the Pure Vessel to seal the Radiance.

Ogrim, conversely, is an extremely warm, likable, earnest person, but also messy, rambunctious, loud, and seemingly a little graceless. 

We don’t have hard evidence the King is/was fussy about upkeep, but, I read him as autistic- the theme of “purity” that threads through the entire game, and especially the chilly, immaculate perfection of the White Palace, to the point that most of the furniture has cloths put over it to keep out dust, combined with how viciously hostile it is as a level to navigate when it’s seemingly the real White Palace twisted together with the King’s dying dream, implies a fastidious, detached, and cleanly person.

And yet, the King formally acknowledging Ogrim, specifically for his loyalty, and both in the real world and in his dreams, Ogrim depicting the King alongside his knight brethren, says something interesting- that two people who we would not expect to get along at all, seemingly _did_. The King is described as “reclusive” and so rarely seen that people mostly worshiped him indirectly through idols and descriptions of his appearance, even to history buffs like Lemm, are hard to come by. He’s mostly presented in abstract through the silhouette of his four-pointed crown. That sort of implies it’s unlikely anybody could have _forced_ the King to give Ogrim a medal through strong-arming social obligation.

(Honestly, if Ogrim is “the Defender”, I have to wonder what the other Knights’ titles were- presumably they had them, separate from their monikers, because Ogrim has both the moniker of ‘loyal’ and the title of Defender)

But without being able to hear from the King’s perspective, we don’t really have a lot of evidence seeming to suggest that relationship deteriorated any more than every other connection the King had deteriorated when he enacted his grand stunt of “it’s time to die in seclusion”. There’s no depiction of only four Great Knights.

And, while this isn’t relevant to the status of Ogrim’s knighthood, it’s interesting that his (dream nail) reaction to Ghost is “so there were others”… meaning that even though he called Pure’s sacrifice “a cruel means” to stop the plague, he didn’t even know about the other Vessels. Which is further intriguing to me, considering it seems to be another mark of Mr. “No Cost Too Great”’s grief and regret- if even the kingdom’s most loyal knight didn’t know what the Pale King did in the Abyss until after his death.

* * *

I love how at first glance Ogrim is like… ha ha funny poop man because in a setting about bugs he’s a dung beetle, and then he has one of the most profoundly heart-wrenching stories of the game and has such an incredible quiet strength and earnest goodness to him, even though he’s suffered so much. He’s the most consistently positive, welcoming, and sincere person and he’s sincerely having _so much fun_ during the boss fight while you face him. 

Team Cherry really went and made Funny Poop Man a deeply altruistic and valiant person to the point that when he adds the statue of Ghost to his house it just goes ahead and rips my heart out because _this man is low-key dadding on Ghost, he sees hope and a chance for the future of the Great Knights and everything they meant to him in this messed up little void child and I have to genuinely believe Ogrim likewise inspires Ghost to try and be a better person_

* * *

Tags: [#hey how are you doing it's time to cry about the dung defender](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/hey-how-are-you-doing-it%27s-time-to-cry-about-the-dung-defender)

**Author's Note:**

> Analyses originally found here: <https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/post/183653139375/what-do-you-think-ogrim-the-dung-defender-did-to>  
> <https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/post/183785543945/i-love-how-at-first-glance-ogrim-is-like-ha-ha>


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